Creator Interview: Malcy Duff

Malcy Duff is a comix creator, artist and musician currently working from edinburgh. We recently sent a few questions his way via email to catch up on what he is up to- enjoy!

If you want to find out more about Malcy’s past and future work please check out his blog. His new comix ‘The Weather and The Weather Forecast’, ‘Faded Book Spine’, and ‘Writing Postcards in the Visitor Centre’ can all be obtained by emailing the contact details on his website

What are you working on at the moment?

I have this rule where by I don’t tell anyone the project I’m working on because if I do it will never get finished, so….

In the past you have exhibited your work in a gallery setting as well as through publications- where, if anywhere do you see your non-printed work developing in the future?

I’ve had an idea but again I better not say.

What degree of similarity is there between the way you create your music and your comics?

I think a massive degree. I’ve often thought one way people could read my comix is as if they are music. My favourite artists who work in a number of mediums, you can tell it’s them when you look at their art, whatever the medium. Maybe they made a painting. Then a bike wheel. Then a remote control. Then a cake. And you know by looking at each piece of work that it’s them. It’s hard to understand what it is about the work, but it’s definitely them. These are intuitive emissions and shouldn’t be overanalyzed. I think when you do overanalyze these things you can start to create parodies. I hope if you listen to my music you can hear, if you wish, the connections yourself. The process is probably similar in the way that I form ideas and develop or improvise on top of them. The major difference is that mostly I will work collaboratively on music and that changes things slightly. Control is easier to lose when you work with someone else, and that’s a guid thing to lose.

What do you feel the differences are between comics and comix?

If you dig under the last letter of comix you will find some treasure.

Peanuts or Calvin & Hobbes? Discuss

If you’re asking me to choose one I would choose Peanuts. I have a nostalgia for Calvin and Hobbes but only because my brother read it when we were growing up and Calvin really reminds me of him. I never really liked it very much. I like pictures of snow so it coaxed me in sometimes, but the snow seemed to be the only thing I could relate to. I’m looking at the light from this computer screen light up my hands and I can see all the wrinkles, crosses, pimples, lines going through my nails, jim henson rocks, wisps… clearly, all over my hands as they age. There are 60s compilations of Peanuts with these really clunky Ben-Day dots for shading which they themselves become characters and abstract forms in the strips. They make it look like the book has acne. That’s why I choose Peanuts.